Pa’ Dogol and Wa’ Long: the evolution of the comedians in the Malay shadow play in Kelantan
Haji Mubin Sheppard’s 1965 article traces the genealogy of Pa’ Dogol and Wa’ Long, the two indispensable comic figures in the Kelantan Malay shadow play, arguing that they are indigenous Malay inventions rather than derivatives of Javanese or Indian clown traditions. The article reconstructs a chain of puppeteer innovation spanning roughly 130 years, from the late eighteenth century to the late nineteenth, in which the displacement of older comic types by Javanese cultural imports ultimately prompted the creation of the pair as we know them today.
Summary
Sheppard begins by describing the two figures in their present form: Pa’ Dogol, a bald, rustic authority figure with a distended stomach, protruding navel, and a wood-cutter’s knife; and Wa’ Long, his mischievous foil with a grotesquely long duck-bill nose and a badek dagger at his waist. Both are unmistakably Malay in character and speech, and neither appears in the Hikayat Sri Rama or in older Indian or Indonesian versions of the Rama cycle (p. 1). Sheppard explicitly rejects Javanese Semar and Turas, as well as the Andhra Pradesh clown Juttupolugadu, as possible sources, noting the obvious physical and functional differences (pp. 2–3).
The historical reconstruction begins with the reign of Long Yunus (1763–1798), when the Kelantan shadow play was centred at the Court of the Raja of Patani and appeared in Kelantan only when circumstances permitted. Long Yunus’ son Long Jenal encouraged the puppeteer Wan Sit to perform regularly at his Balai. At this stage, the prologue featured the sage Maha Risi accompanied by two forest clowns, Endeng and Epong, who hunted game and fought a tiger before the main performance could begin (pp. 3–4). The critical disruption came through Demukmin, a pupil of Wan Sit’s son Awang, who sailed for Java at age fourteen and studied the Javanese shadow play for thirty years before returning in 1835. Demukmin elevated Semar to paramount rank, supplanting Maha Risi, and the forest clowns consequently disappeared from the repertoire (p. 4).
The recovery of comic figures came during the short reign of Sultan Ahmad (1886–1889), when the puppeteer Saman invented two new clowns with mobile jaws: Pa’ Diman and Pa’ Kadir. These were Malays with no Thai associations, behaving and speaking like ordinary village folk. After Saman’s death, his best pupil Ya’akub renamed and modified the pair into Pa’ Dogol and Wa’ Long, giving Pa’ Dogol a sense of authority and Wa’ Long his mirth-provoking nose. Ya’akub also initiated the cult of Pa’ Dogol’s supernatural powers, a development Sheppard regards as less commendable (pp. 4–5).
Key Findings
- The Kelantan shadow play is traceable to the reign of Long Yunus (1763–1798), with its headquarters at the Patani court; Long Jenal’s patronage of the puppeteer Wan Sit established a regular performance tradition in Kelantan (p. 3).
- Demukmin’s thirty-year sojourn in Java (returning 1835) introduced Javanese shadow play figures and elevated Semar above Maha Risi, causing the original forest clowns Endeng and Epong to disappear from the repertoire (p. 4).
- The puppeteer Saman invented Pa’ Diman and Pa’ Kadir during Sultan Ahmad’s reign (1886–1889) as direct replacements for the lost forest clowns; both had mobile jaws and arms, distinguishing them from the classical Rama figures (pp. 4–5).
- Ya’akub, Saman’s pupil, is credited with creating Pa’ Dogol and Wa’ Long by renaming and modifying Pa’ Diman and Pa’ Kadir; figures reported to be 70 years old (c. 1895) were used to entertain Tengku Temenggong Ja’afar of Kelantan (p. 5).
- W. W. Skeat’s 1896 collection of 154 leather figures from the travelling puppeteer Che Abas, now at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, includes Pa’ Diman and Pa’ Kadir but contains no trace of Pa’ Dogol and Wa’ Long, confirming the later date of the latter’s invention (p. 5).
- The name “Dogol” derives from the Malay word for hornless (of a buffalo or bull), extended to mean a bald person and, by further extension, one whose “bark is worse than his bite” (p. 5).
Conclusion
Sheppard’s definitive takeaway is that Pa’ Dogol and Wa’ Long are the product of a specific chain of cultural disruption and creative recovery: the Javanese import of Semar eliminated the older Malay comic types, and successive generations of Kelantan puppeteers — Saman and then Ya’akub — reinvented indigenous clowns to fill the resulting void. The pair represent “an evergreen memorial to the inventive genius of Ya’akub the puppeteer” and provide “an ideal vehicle for the infectious humour of succeeding generations of Malay comedians” (p. 5).
Context
- The article draws on physical specimens held at the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge (Skeat’s 1896–1898 collection) and on figures acquired by Sheppard himself in Kelantan, making it a rare example of material-culture-based performance history in the JMBRAS.
- The piece situates the Kelantan shadow play within a broader Malay-Indonesian-Javanese cultural sphere, noting the Patani court’s role as a transmission node and the competitive dynamics between Malay and Javanese puppet traditions in the region.