Malay customs and beliefs as recorded in Malay literature and folklore, Part III
H. Overbeck’s 1925 article, the third in his series on Malay customs and beliefs as recorded in Malay literature and folklore, examines the institutions of betrothal and marriage through close reading of classical Malay romances, chronicles, and the autobiography of Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir. Overbeck’s overarching thesis is that Malay literary texts preserve detailed, reliable evidence of ceremonial practice—particularly royal marriage rites—that can be reconstructed to reveal the social, religious, and political dimensions of the institution.
Summary
Overbeck begins with betrothal, noting that Malay literature gives it comparatively little attention. In the fairy-tale tradition, roving princes marry without prior ceremony, while in historical romances royal marriages are arranged through formal embassies. The Hikayat Anggun Che Tunggal provides the most elaborate description: a prime-minister presents the betrothal betel in a set of quatrains, the bride’s father grants the request with a stipulation (a faith-breaker shall be turned into a monkey), and the couple later confirm the betrothal by exchanging arm-rings. The Sejarah Melayu records a similar embassy-based arrangement between the Sultans of Johore and Pahang, while the Hikayat Raja Muda preserves the unusual practice of betrothing infants by exchanging their swaddling-clothes.
The bulk of the article is devoted to the two recognised forms of marriage. The abbreviated form, conducted “only to ensure happiness” (mengambil selamat), appears when a court is in mourning or for other unstated reasons; it is frequently repeated later with full festivities even after children have been born. The full ceremony, described at length in the Hikayat Raja Muda, Hikayat Malim Deman, and Hikayat Hang Tuah, involves initial festivities of up to forty days during which subject rajas contribute presents in fantastic shapes (dragons, lions, flying carriages, pavilions with turning wheels), the bridegroom sends penumah (bridegroom’s presents) and mas belanja (contribution towards expenses), and cannon are fired daily. The final day features the kadzi conducting the nikah, a marriage procession announced by nine cannon-shots, the couple taking their seat on a twelve-storey bridal throne under sixteen umbrellas of state, the confarreatio (eating of the octagonal bridal rice), sprinkling of rose-water, and the joining of the little fingers by the chief female attendant.
A separate section treats the ceremonial bath (pancha persada), described in the Sejarah Melayu and Hikayat Hang Tuah as taking place in a multi-storey pavilion with dragons spouting water, the couple being carried in procession around it, and cosmetics applied by senior royal women. Overbeck also records the Hindu-derived practice of marriage to a keris (weapon-marriage), which Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir denounces as a “disgraceful custom” practised by Malay rajas who seize girls against their will. The article closes with observations on the custom of the bridegroom not taking his consort away from her home country—a practice Abdullah laments in his own experience in Singapore, calling it melangkah lautan.
Key Findings
- The isi kahwin (bride-price) recorded in the Hikayat Anggun Che Tunggal (p. 157) was one thousand boat-shaped bars of tin (sa-ribu jongkong timah).
- In the Hikayat Hang Tuah (II, p. 145), the bridegroom’s presents (penumah) comprised seven bahara of gold towards expenses, seven changes of clothes, seventy serving-maids, and seven pieces of embroidered cloth.
- The ceremonial bathing-pavilion in the Hikayat Hang Tuah (II, p. 159) was seventeen storeys high, with four dragons at the corners from whose mouths flowed the lustration water; the couple was carried in procession three times round it.
- The Sejarah Melayu (II, p. 166) preserves an anecdote indicating the customary limit of three mouthfuls of bridal rice per person, violated comically by Hang Hussain Jong.
- A royal prince could have four legal consorts, titled Permaisuri, Paduka Mahadewi, Mahatur, and Paduka Liku (Shaer Kin Tambuhan); Klinkert adds a fifth title, Mahalangi, in the Javanese system.
- The Hikayat Raja Muda (p. 13) records forty days of festivities preceding the full marriage ceremony, with the procession announced by nine cannon-shots.
Conclusion
Overbeck demonstrates that Malay literary texts—romances, chronicles, and autobiographies—constitute a rich and internally consistent corpus for reconstructing the ceremonial architecture of royal marriage, from betrothal through the nikah, the confarreatio, and the pancha persada. The persistence of Hindu-derived elements (weapon-marriage, the four-consort system, the confarreatio terminology) alongside Islamic formalities (kadzi, nikah) reveals a layered syncretic tradition in which pre-Islamic courtly practice was absorbed into the Muslim ceremonial framework without full displacement.
Context
- The article draws exclusively on printed Malay literary texts (the Hikayat and Sejarah editions of the Malay Literature Series, Abdullah’s autobiography, and the Cherita Jenaka), with no reference to fieldwork or manuscript archives.
- Overbeck was a German-born scholar serving in the Dutch colonial administration in the East Indies; his work represents the early comparative-literary approach to Malay ethnography that preceded the anthropological fieldwork tradition of the 1930s.