LONTAR issue #1 Read online

  HLM 302 Treatment of Illness

  This course delves into the basic techniques of albularyo and mananambal, the general practitioners of the healing world. This involves the teaching of both the mundane, such as folk and herbal remedies, but also the supernatural. The course begins with an attempt to commune with environmental spirits, usually during a dream-state, in order to secure a relationship with a benefactor that will provide both knowledge and assistance to the healer. These spiritual benefactors are essential to the power of an albularyo or mananambal.

  HLM 401 Hilot

  Hilot is a special healing technique to treat muscle and bone pain and dysfunction. This course will cover the three major forms of hilot: the mirror technique (usually only for treatment of children), the banana leaf technique (where the leaf sticks to the spot that is at the root of the ailment), and the splint technique (where splinting and special prayer formulas are used in conjunction).

  HLM 402 Luop

  This course teaches luop, a ritual that is effective in ascertaining the cause of an illness, particularly if the illness is caused by spiritual beings. Attention is given to both the material components of the ritual (such as the baong-lalaki, the shell of a coconut with a "dimple" at a particular place), and the mechanics of the "Rite of the Cross" and other parts of the ritual.

  HLM 403 Buga

  This course teaches buga, which is a specialty technique that allows the curing of wounds through a combination of prayers and the application of chewed betel nut. Students will learn the proper preparation of nganga (a mixture of betel leaves, areca nut, lime and tobacco), and the properties of the three types of spittle: sali, bungang-putay, and lubigan, each of which are effective against different types of wounds.

  Jayawarman 9th Remembers the Dragon Archipelago

  Chris Mooney-Singh

  The writing of Chris Mooney-Singh (Australia/Singapore) has appeared in The Best of South-East Asian Erotica, The Best of Singapore Erotica, Love and Lust in Singapore and Crime Search: Singapore. His recent poetry collection The Bearded Chameleon (2011) explores cultural adoption as a convert to Sikhism. The Laughing Buddha Cab Company (2007) looks at Asia through a series of taxi rides. Two short plays were produced for the Singapore Short and Sweet festival in 2008 and 2009. Based permanently in Singapore, he is presently a post-graduate research scholar at Monash University, Melbourne.

  1. Prologue

  Not many rajahs live the life of dragons.

  Most come and go in love with their istanas.

  Wisdom is earned outside of history.

  Map your footsteps through philosophy.

  The once-upon-a-time name Jayawarman—

  my final fixed abode on earth, is just

  a history lesson. A name is but a name,

  the sense of "mine" on temporary loan.

  One's living actions have no end at all.

  My old pink fortress perches on the cliff,

  its fallen gate—a gaping jungle mouth

  and cairn of stones, protected by bamboo

  is the bone-yard where they piled our heap of dead.

  Although each wall and pillar of the body

  has crumbled back to dust, my eyes can see

  the past and future from Pelangi Peak.

  Looking down, I note my chronicle

  of rajah years like childhood on a playground

  underneath a wide waringin tree.

  I am lucky that I got to live with dragons.

  The teller is inside his story now . . .

  2. Birth of Dragons

  This world began when Mountain Naga met

  with Water Dragon Dewi from the depths

  on each side of an island, balancing

  on the turtle of the world. They kept alert

  as guardian snakes awake to sea-bed earthquakes.

  Then collided in a squall. Their cold union

  hovered as a hot monsoonal threat

  for weeks, until the boiling sky let loose

  one hundred thousand baby nagas like

  a storm of blistering meteors on the sea.

  Over time, these emerald islands rose

  like vertebrae at buckling intervals,

  poking through the ocean's bluish-green;

  and so we have our archipelago.

  Now, note the head, those jagged spinal humps,

  a whiplash tail, and how the morning changes

  from yellow cantaloupe to midday blue;

  and when green hills go dark each afternoon,

  the coastal sky returns to pinkish rose.

  I and my lineage had lingered long

  with mountains, cliffs and beaches, reptile rocks,

  until one night. The Father Rajahs brought

  into my dream some storm cloud like a fist

  with a future looming bad for all of us.

  So they divulged the soul-shape of the Barong,

  the good Barong of time, space and protection,

  our primal Guardian—tooth, wing and claw

  part lion, tiger, boar with serpent tail—

  joining the far quarters of our island.

  A dragon naga serpent is cold fusion.

  3. Making the Barong

  I had the icon carved. Light changed the look

  of his fierce mask to scare away base spirits

  sunrise to dusk. This was a ruse to front

  our fears, a demon form with bigger claws

  to slay new demons. His snout and snarling teeth,

  and jagged fern-sharp wings were set to guard

  the sky along the half-moon of the beach

  and eat invaders, ripping heads like rats.

  I placed him in the garden on the hill

  and let the sun through slits in palm slats taunt him

  green to red. Then growing huge, the shadows,

  length to length, each rose colossus-like

  like soldiers in his service standing guard.

  This is where we taught our young to sit

  and look with eyelids closed, through champa joss,

  rising up around our hook-nailed god;

  and as we sat to ponder our ancestor

  like an old volcano smoldering, yet ready

  to unleash his molten fury any moment

  we came to learn that nothing stays forever.

  Whatever brought us to our pinnacle

  dispatched us into the dragon-breathing wind.

  4. My Land, My People

  My subjects were the simple nutmeg race

  old as mussels, cuttlefish and clams

  scavenged from the rock pool and the beach,

  or running free between liana trails—

  bamboo blowpipes poised upon two legs

  according to totems of tiger, snake and boar.

  And the fishermen among us cast their nets

  from outriggers. They were cut for speed,

  swerving inside reef and atoll rocks

  after ray and turtle, crab and eel and shark;

  while the bulk of my subjects lived upon the uplands,

  because they believe the gods are in the mountains

  enjoying cooler winds while tending padi,

  employed by hard seasons of the hoe,

  pinching down each rice shoot into mud,

  trickling pools of rain through gates of earth

  and terracing the hills like steps to Heaven.

  A clever few maintained the bomoh calling—

  one who scratched a melody from the rebab,

  while the other moved with ghost-cries on his tongue—

  shamans who then sliced the throats of bantams.

  Soused in rice arrack, they paid the Dead

  for fear of failing crops, or a stillborn son.

  Then, there were my subjects who chose to live

  outside my laws and edicts' lucid ways—

  outcastes with the lust of raiders and pirates.

  Nested like spiders in green bays,

  they
hoisted sails to loot with kris and club,

  hoarding gold and jewels and contraband,

  living it up like rude lords in my realm.

  Despite such mosquitoes on my shores,

  who, sometimes I would slap down with my troops,

  liberating their wealth on elephant backs

  I, the rajah, ruled these Dragon Islands.

  5. Confluences

  Gradually, civilizations from the East

  traded well with us—the Hindu-Buddhists

  bringing too, the arts of temple friezes—

  the visages of men who would be dewas;

  and our best were sent to India for higher learning,

  or for steps of temple dance and architecture;

  or China-ward to understudy ceramics,

  and learn the forging of metals into gongs.

  Next, dragon-headed Chinese temple priests

  settled among us. They carried the South Sea goddess

  for prosperity among our sea-town merchants,

  hosting loud occasions with gods and ghosts

  deploying gunpowder, fire-crackers, and sky rockets

  to scare their dead souls when they got too hungry.

  Thus, envoys come in droves and sit and feast

  on coconut rice served on banana fronds

  and small fish wrapped in green leaves, skewered and baked

  with the finest spices, sauces, sweet meats, tidbits

  as feasting is the prelude to politics,

  the elephant trade of mutual wealth and peace.

  Gifts demanding gifts, made bonds and treaties.

  Princesses from China or the Malabar Coast

  were brought to build the blood stock of the court,

  strengthening ties with fragrant etiquette

  adept with music, silks, and other graces—

  the sacred arts of the red bird rising up

  before the gates of jade from dusk to dawn.

  The Brahmin blessed my seaport town with joss

  on holy days. This was the royal way of Rajah

  Jayawarman—chiseling in stone,

  the Barong's great, yet frightening countenance.

  6. Nutmeg

  Thus, millennia had docked here for our nutmeg,

  a sweet ancillary to cakes or eggnog,

  a piquant garnish for all fish, flesh or fowl

  slowing down the process of decay.

  I wish I'd known this would be ours as well

  through a spice that masks the rot in meat.

  First—Indian and Middle Kingdom fleets,

  then Arab traders with a new conversion

  that we received, yet never lost ourselves,

  wearing them like another coat of silk.

  Each adapted each through intermarriage,

  softening the nutmeg in our pallor.

  Pirates plied their trade with long snake boats,

  with dhows, the junks and Indian unnatas,

  all bound with spices, ivory and sandal,

  dragon silk brocade, imperial Ming.

  Some shipwrecked here and gurgled to the depths,

  rattling nails and teacups in the current

  as gold and silver tinkled onto the coral.

  7. Adventurers

  It seemed there was enough for all, until

  European galleons dropping anchor,

  forced themselves into our grand istanas—

  clinking men—steel conquistadors,

  brassy, cunning, venal, loud and blunt,

  demanding trading rights upon our shores.

  Their doggedness was gauche, yet refusal

  was not a way of action that we practiced.

  We followed in the path of courtesy,

  through a dynasty of Jayawarmans.

  Gradually, we saw them as they were—

  double-tongued, bent on grabbing all;

  and later on, wind-jammers stopping too

  with green tea and opium as tender,

  invading with false dragon-breath our dreams,

  annexing the islands of our bodies,

  squeezed us in their merchant-python grip.

  Appropriating hands would not let go,

  seeking to chain us, divesting us of power,

  relentless as the earthquakes that now came

  one after the other. As Ruler, I was blamed.

  The priests performed the ritual with a lotus

  to the dragon in the smoking mountain,

  reciting prayers and waving champa joss,

  then stuck them into offerings of papaya

  because this rajah had become too modern,

  inviting foreigners to our spice-tray table.

  Accepting tribute, refusal would be rude

  and fire carillons of cannons from their ships.

  What could I do? We had not said No before

  to Indians, Chinese or the Arab traders.

  Our royal ocean barges were outmatched

  by gunboats shouting off at us for show.

  Every hoard of nutmeg, costing blood

  was traded on to Europe, that famished ogre.

  8. Patronage

  I held my head up as a puppet rajah,

  a cut-out figure in this modern wayang

  hoping that the better men would come

  and see us as we were—a cultured race

  with music, dances, shadow puppets, sculpture.

  Our wayang of poetry on the stage

  may have shared its fine intelligence,

  but to them our Ramayana was child's play.

  I tried to fuse the last vestiges of power

  into an epic dance and antique classics:

  my biggest shows exerted old prestige

  with flames and lights. The fire-rockets

  announced my position with the people.

  Yes, this was my sentimental zenith—

  nurturing art and artisans: from childhood—

  little girls with eye and finger mudras

  had such refinement that old men wept with joy.

  Therefore, every village had a stage,

  an enclosure with the mask-face of each god,

  hanging like a council of Time's elders.

  The gifted ones, the blessed by Gods among us

  breathed in the pranic blue breath of the Spirit

  through deer and peacock dances, tiger hunts

  with elephants on stage. The ultimate

  observance was to play a hero-god,

  saving Sita with a monkey army;

  or going primal with a matted body—

  our frightening archipelago Barong,

  awakened from our prehistoric epochs

  when gods were rivers, clouds, volcano outcrops.

  Such actors wore the mask with psychic skill,

  fixing dragon movements in their limbs

  to bless for crops, or to kill which means protect;

  yet even they could not restrain the Ghosts

  with pale skins not living in our world

  who came with gunboat manners, iron muskets,

  and burning lust—all ravenous for nutmeg.

  9. In the Temple of the Dead

  For years, I'd bought them off by selling slaves

  for plantation work on Dutch Batavia.

  When it was clear that no amount of swords

  and elephant charges with brave warriors

  could match five warships of those hard marines,

  there was only one thing left for us to do:

  to take the moral ground before the guns.

  Actors donned their masks carved from pale

  Hibiscus wood. Yes, it was time to show

  our pride, our race, our culture and our faith

  with the trance-inducing dance of the Barong.

  At first, the monkeys seated on the stones

  in a torso-swaying circle, move their arms

  this way and that. Their ululating throats

  chant to Rangda, hairy p
rotégé of Kali,

  Then, the banished queen of witches springs

  into the Temple of the Dead.

  With deafening drums

  she dances on the stones, hard-footed, whorish,

  a baby-gorging goddess of revenge,

  dispersing her black magic through white silk—

  so all will turn their kris blades on themselves.

  But then, the Barong enters. Through stone pillars

  he lunges forth with dragon fangs and claws,

  lashing out with a coiled razor tail

  above the front rank heads of the Dutch marines,

  then spins with a final swipe of lightning

  and turns the monkey bellies to dragon hide.

  Drums and gamelan gongs reach their peak.

  Kris blades snap on skin, and the monkeys live.

  Rangda, mad and disarmed by deeper magic

  disappears between the temple pillars,

  goaded by the Barong and monkey troupe.

  I was glad because the Dutch were sweating.

  Terror is the palpable Barong,

  a rumbling from the earthquake ring of fire.

  It was conjured from the guts of an epic poem,

  warming us up for the crux of our rebellion.

  10. Denouement

  Light had already plugged the mouth of darkness

  in a realm the Dutch invaders could not see.

  All that was left was to sprinkle consecration:

  so my High Brahmin took his jeweled kris

  and stabbed his loving rajah in the heart.

  My noble retinue of fifteen hundred

  dressed in the finest silk embroidery,