A rice-ceremony
This short note by R. O. Winstedt documents a first-hand observation of a pre-planting rice ceremony involving a mock combat ritual, linking it to earlier accounts by Blagden and Skeat.
Summary
Winstedt reports witnessing the bapua (or singketa) ceremony at Johol, in which two parties hurled puar rods—approximately 3½ feet long, thin, green, and flat-ended—across a gully at one another until one combatant was struck in the face and the proceedings ended after about half an hour (p. 249). A pawang opened the event with an invocation, and the stated purpose was to expel evil influences from the fields before planting. Winstedt notes that the rods may be stems of a ginger-plant and that singketa, as a more serious variant, involves heavier weapons such as batang pisang (p. 249).