The shadow play of Kelantan: report on a period of field research. MB 43(2): 53– 80 D 1970 — Corrections
Amin Sweeney, a British ethnographer resident in Kelantan since 1960, published this field research report in 1970 documenting the Malay shadow-play (wayang) of Kelantan and the wider Malay-speaking world of the east coast and Southern Thailand. Based on systematic fieldwork conducted during 1968–69, the study examines the wayang as entertainment, ritual, and socio-economic institution, arguing that the art form’s remarkable survival—and even a wave of renewed popularity in Kelantan—is driven by hard-headed commercial enterprise rather than state patronage or cultural nationalism.
Summary
Sweeney identifies three distinct types of wayang-kulit in Kelantan—the Thai Nang Talung (called Wayang GedeK), the Wayang Siam, and the Wayang Jawa—and concentrates his analysis on the two Malay forms. The Wayang Siam is by far the more vital, with several hundred active dalangs, while the Wayang Jawa is on the verge of extinction with only two surviving practitioners. The article’s central analytical framework treats the wayang as a fusion of multiple art forms—drama, music, puppet-carving, voice manipulation, and ritual—resisting reduction to any single dimension. Sweeney’s key methodological contribution is the recording of a “key version” of the basic repertoire from the elderly dalang Awang Lah of Tumpat, produced through tape-recorded narration in the teacher-to-pupil mode, yielding a manuscript of some 110,000 words that serves as a comparative baseline against a large representative sample of dalangs from every district of Kelantan and from Trengganu, Perak, Kedah, and Southern Thailand.
The economic analysis reveals a system in which the wayang has been transformed from a patronage-based entertainment (main peri) into a commercial enterprise: a landowner erects a panggung, invites a dalang, sells one-price tickets, and shares takings with the troupe after deducting a licence fee and tax. This commercial logic, Sweeney argues, explains why the wayang thrives in Kelantan and Southern Thailand but is disappearing in Perak, where it is not run on the same business basis. The socio-economic profile of the dalang is that of a peasant: most hold secondary occupations in agriculture or magico-religious practice, and very few live entirely on wayang income.
The ritual dimension constitutes the study’s most original contribution. Sweeney documents in detail the berjamu complex—comprising pelimau, pelepas niat, and menyemah—a long nocturnal ceremony involving kenduri invocations, the Wak Peran Hutan exorcism drama, the Cherita Betara Kala (a local version of the Javanese Moerwa Kala), and a trance sequence in which the dalang is possessed in turn by the jembalang (spirits) of his puppets and feeds them offerings. The ritual is structurally a main puteri performance, requiring the presence of a mindok puteri with a three-stringed rebab. Sweeney situates this syncretic practice within the broader tension in Kelantan between Islamic orthodoxy (championed by the Pan-Malayan Islamic Party, which controls the state government) and the dalangs’ own framing of their practices as ikhtiar (permissible means to an end) performed in the name of Allah.
Key Findings
- Approximately 300 dalangs of the Wayang Siam were active in Kelantan at the time of research, concentrated on the padi-growing coastal plain; only two dalangs of the Wayang Jawa remained alive (p. 53).
- Troupe fees ranged from M$20 to $70 per night depending on distance and duration; the dalang took a 10–20% perkakas (equipment) share before dividing the remainder among performers, with the dalang and serunai player receiving the largest portions (pp. 55–56).
- The berjamu ritual lasted from approximately 8:15 pm until between 9:00 and 12:00 the following morning; the trance-feeding sequence alone could last up to six hours (pp. 74, 76).
- At least half of the Kelantanese dalangs interviewed practised concurrently as bomoh (general-purpose medicine-men) and/or as bomoh in main puteri trance-dance (pp. 56–57).
- The basic part of the repertoire (Cherita Maharaja Rawana) was performed by the oldest dalang, Awang Lah, over a period of two months, whereas a young dalang from Bachok completed it in three nights—evidence, Sweeney suggests, that the tale was moving toward oblivion (p. 64).
- The Cherita Betara Kala drama, in which the demon Kala confronts the dalang-in-character (Wak Long) at a wayang panggung, is a local version of the Javanese exorcistic lakon “Moerwa Kala” and is considered fraught with danger; children are not permitted to sleep near the panggung during its performance (p. 75).
Conclusion
Sweeney’s definitive takeaway is that the Kelantanese wayang is a living, commercially sustained institution whose ritual core represents a deep syncretic fusion of Malay, Javanese, and local spiritual traditions that persists despite active opposition from Islamic conservatives. He explicitly declines to speculate on the origins of the shadow-play, arguing that in the absence of historical records, the priority must be to provide as complete an account as possible of the wayang in its present state, thereby establishing a baseline for future comparative and historical research.
Context
- The study is grounded in direct fieldwork (1968–69) across Kelantan, Trengganu, Perak, Kedah, and Southern Thailand, supplemented by tape recordings, photographs, and the transcription of all available dalang manuscripts; it builds on Sweeney’s earlier non-scientific investigations of 1962–64.
- As a foundational ethnographic monograph, the article predates the subsequent decline of the wayang in much of its range and remains a primary reference for the ritual, economic, and repertoire structures of the Kelantanese Wayang Siam.