Notes on the invocation of Akuan
F.F. Laidlaw’s note records a first-hand account of a main putri ceremony witnessed in Kota Bahru, Kelantan, in October 1899, prompted by Zainul Abidin bin Ahmad’s earlier article on the “Akuan or Spirit-Friends” (p. 376).
Summary
Laidlaw describes attending a healing ritual for a young man with chronic rheumatism, guided by two armed young men carrying wickerwork shields. The ceremony involved a bomor (medium) who performed incantations in a falsetto voice, threw incense smoke about the room, and entered violent head-shaking frenzies accompanied by a three-stringed Malay viol and rhythmic beating of metal pots by onlookers (p. 376). The seance was ultimately resolved when the bomor identified that the sick man’s mother had driven out a dove without feeding it, which removed a hindrance to the cure (p. 377). Laidlaw notes the ceremony was conducted under secrecy because the ruling Sultan and religious authorities regarded such practices as contrary to Islamic teaching, and records that the bomor subsequently demonstrated his powers by correctly predicting the outcome of a bull fight (p. 377).