Abstract
This chapter examines the figure of the Nenek Kebayan in the Malay folktale as an aspect of the literary culture and heritage of Malaysia. Folktales are didactic repositories of moral and spiritual meaning but also serve as dynamic cultural forms in the negotiation of such meanings. In reassessing the role of the Nenek Kebayan in selected textual adaptations of Malaysian folktales for children, this chapter affirms the significance of the folktale as a dynamic form of intangible cultural heritage and imparts new insights on the reconfiguration of a familiar literary character commonly found in the genre, while also enriching present discussions on the construction and negotiation of gender identity in Malaysia.
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Notes
- 1.
Under the National Heritage Act 2005, only one individual, Ali Badron Sabor, has been identified and listed under the category of “penglipur lara” as a National Heritage Living Person, or Warisan Kebangsaan Orang Hidup (Wakoh), a reflection of the state of oral storytelling as a form of intangible cultural heritage at risk of becoming lost. According to Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Mohamaddin Ketapi, the title is “a special acknowledgment” and is meant to preserve the heritage embodied in the traditional creative arts upheld by these figures. “The idea to give recognition to these figures sparked from the realisation that there are now fewer and fewer of these cultural art practitioners”. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/03/10/its-national-heritage-personified-special-govt-awards-are-also-given-to-individuals-considered-as-tr/. Accessed 30 April 2019.
- 2.
- 3.
The terms “bomoh” and “pawang” are often used interchangeably by the Malays as an ethnic community. However, as Md. Taib Osman explains, in most places in Malaysia, “bomoh” refers to “the specialist whose main vocation is healing”, while “pawang” refers to “a more versatile practitioner of magic endowed with many talents” (1989, 60). For Farouk Yahya (2016), bomohs serve more as spirit mediums, whose task is to communicate with or command the “semangat” (soul, emotions, meaning, desire, or spirit). See full translation from Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka http://prpm.dbp.gov.my/cari1?keyword=semangat. Further details on the use of these two terms can also be found in Norruddin (2018).
- 4.
Pampang myths of origin refer to basic traditional beliefs of the Kadazan Penampang community. According to Hanafi Hussin, rice-farming rituals are manifestations of such beliefs and serve as a marker of ethnic identity. Pampang myths tell the story of Kinoingan as a creator, his wife Suminundu, and their daughter Puninzuvung, who was sacrificed by her mother as a replacement for food. Puninzuvung later became the rice spirit Bambaazon, who is highly respected by the Kadazan. The community performs a number of rituals to commemorate her kindness and act of sacrifice, which are meant to “stabilize the relationship between the seen and unseen world” and to enable humans and spirits to live in balance (2008, 189).
- 5.
The age of witch hunting in Europe spanned from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries in its sweep from Germany to England. Its essential character was that of “a ruling class campaign of terror directed against the female peasant population” (Ehrenreich and English 5).
- 6.
According to Tatar, reward-and-punishment tales teach “not only through the power of words and deeds, but also through the spectacle of punishment”. Such folktales also tended to be heavily gendered in their depiction of the characters. Heroines were faced with tasks of demonstrating domestic competence, while heroes were challenged with tasks and missions that led them “on the road to high adventure” (69). The tale of Dewi Labu Kundur, as I argue, appears to overturn this convention, given the egalitarian view of household management upheld by the bobohizan as community leaders, and the Kadazan in general.
- 7.
A famous example appears in the folk romance Hikayat Indraputra which tells the story of the young prince Indraputra who was captured by a golden peacock, but fell into Nenek Kebayan’s garden, and was raised by the kindly old woman (Liaw 159).
- 8.
Trites refers to this as the nurturing of “human interdependency” in which the child or adolescent protagonist is “likely to assume a subject position that allows her or him to value community without sacrificing his or her selfhood” (1997, 84).
- 9.
Goriaeva notes how the Nenek Kebayan can also serve as a comic figure and source of humor in classical Malay literature. She states how “Nenek Kebayan often provokes and welcomes laughter and joking at herself”, and cites the Hikayat Si-Miskin where “she sends away the Raja’s messengers coming to invite the hero to the court, telling them that the young man has diarrhea. At the hero’s wedding Nenek Kebayan is dressed up and powdered like a bride, becoming a comic double of the princess” (99).
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Osman, S.A. (2020). Re(con)figuring the Nenek Kebayan Through Folktale Adaptation: Malaysian Folktales as Literary and Cultural Heritage. In: Gabriel, S. (eds) Making Heritage in Malaysia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1494-4_6
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