Current Issue/Words/Prose/Beth Osnes

What Remains in Shadow - Beth Osnes

After a summer of backpacking around Malaysia and Indonesia in search of performances and practitioners of the Wayang Kulit, traditional shadow puppet theatre, I was convinced that I wanted to write my dissertation on this. Sitting on woven mats in front of an illuminated muslin screen, the shadows of ancient Hindu gods and demons battled in an unending struggle between good and evil. Though my Malay language skills were improving, I was persistently aware that much of the meaning of this form remained obscure to me and hidden in the shadows. The entire performance within the Malaysian cultural context was rife with contradiction--Indigenous, pre-Hindu gods (most notably the clown characters) intermingling with Hindu epic tales represented by shadow puppets. And this all occurring in an Islamic country where representational artistic expression is discouraged. I was intrigued and charged with the challenge of illuminating the mystery for myself and the rest of academia.

Back in Colorado, I applied for and got a Fulbright to conduct field research in the northeast part of peninsular Malaysia where the form is less refined and well-known than it's Javanese counterpart. My husband, J.P., was with me the first half of my stay there, but he had to get back to his job for the rest of the time. After he left, it was as if another whole layer of the society was opened up to me, and I was invited in. With him, we were seen as a couple, complete within ourselves. Alone, I was seen as wanting and needing (neither of which I particularly felt). The puppet master, Dalang Hamzah, with whom I studied performance of the puppets each day, urged me to move into a room in his family's house in the kampung (village). It was not right for a woman to be alone, he said. I politely yet firmly declined, preferring my room in Kota Bharu where I could slip off alone to a Chinese restaurant and have a cold beer. The down side of being alone was that I was assumed to be a loose western woman by many. I tried to dress respectfully with long skirts and my arms covered for the most part, but it was to no avail. I had an Indian man run up to me on the street and blurt out,”You want to fuck?” The Malay cultural officer, upon whom I depended for transporting me to various other puppet masters' homes for interviews, was constantly making passes at me and telling me how strong he was even though I was nearly a foot taller than him.

During my months studying under Dalang Hamzah, I would go with him to all of his performances to conduct field research. On this one weekend, he had a “Bomoh” gig. Most of the puppet masters in rural Malaysia double as spiritual healers or Bomohs , as a logical consequence of them being so in touch with the spiritual world. It is believed by the local folks that the actual gods and demons of the Wayang stories come down to earth in the shadows created on the screen by the shadow puppets. So, the puppet master had better be able to control this raucous group of characters or all hell could break loose in a village. On this night, I clutched onto his thin waist from the back of his motorcycle as we sped down a pitch-black road snaking through the jungle to the home of the woman in need of spiritual healing. The other men in Hamzah's troupe where following behind more slowly in the truck carrying the musical instruments and necessary ritual items.

Upon arriving, it appeared as if all the neighbors from miles around were gathered at this woman's house to witness her Berjamu ritual. As was expected, the woman's family sponsoring the event fed Hamzah and his musicians before the ceremony began. Some of the other important men of the family and of the kampung ate too. The women served the men their dinner first, after which, the women would eat together in the kitchen. I was invited to eat with the men as a sort of “honorary man” since I was a western researcher and they didn't know what else to do with me. The women of the family served us as we sat on mats on the floor of their raised house. After talking with Hamzah's musicians, I ascertained that she had “a sick spirit.” She looked healthy as a horse to me as she bustled back and forth from the kitchen serving us our steamed banana stems, chicken and rice. She appeared to be about 35 or 40, a handsome woman with a slim but strong figure.

Finally, after coffee had been served and the homegrown cigarettes had been rolled and smoked, the Berjamu was prepared to begin. Beneath a canopy of fronds, there was a matted dance floor with the musicians from my teacher's gamelon orchestra seated down each side of the area. The surrounding area was adorned with ornate offerings to the spirits of the sea, the forest and the home. At the head, sat Dalang Hamzah himself. A crowd of friends, family and curious children gathered around the hut anxiously awaiting and chatting among themselves. The woman who was to be healed silently entered the space and sat kneeling towards Hamzah. She was wearing a modest yet attractive long-sleeved tunic with a sarong beneath it. Her head was covered in with a yellow veil that attached behind the back of her neck. Her gaze was down, and she had a demure composure.

The custom of Purda is usually followed more loosely deep in the rural areas of Malaysia than in the more urban areas where many women wear a long hijab tightly secured under the chin. In fact, it seemed to me as if Islam itself was but a thin layer put over the surface of their faith which ran much deeper into their past preceding Islamic conversion. Just as there are layers of society, there are many layers of faith in these parts. The indigenous Malay beliefs in the local spirits and forces of the earth are the roots of this faith. When Hinduism and then Islam came to these areas, the people were converted to each new faith, but never seemed to relinquish the old. Instead, they seemed to assimilate them all together into a manner of faith that allows them to stay connected to their more urban countrymen and women but keeps them connected to their past and the forces in the environment all around them.

Dalang Hamzah started the proceedings by whispering incantations to the two rawhide shadow puppets he had with him, one in each hand. The puppets were Pak Dogol and Wak Long, two clown characters that, oddly enough, hold the most spiritual significance within the Malaysian shadow puppet theatre. In this instance, however, he was not performing with them, but, rather, was using them as talismans to draw the needed spirits out from the spiritual realm into the world of the living. Hamzah placed incense in front of the woman and she held her hands over the smoke drawing it to her face with her eyes closed. The driving music of the gamelan gongs, cymbals and drums began to affect her body. She started taking shallow breaths and rocking forwards and back, forwards and back. With her hands on the floor, her whole body began rocking in rhythm to the trance-inducing music. The music consumed her, freeing her from the usual decorum of a Muslim woman. Moving more roughly to the pounding rhythm, the covering fell down from her head, and her long, wavy black hair loosened from its bun and fell around her. She was uncovered; revealing herself as a sensual woman who was powerful and profoundly alive. I was amazed and excited by her transformation. Her eyes were fiery with the near-possession of a spirit. Still surrendering her body's will to the rhythm of the music, she rose to her knees, and then to her feet in full trance. Hamzah led her to the platters of ritual food offerings made up of brightly colored gluttonous rice, eggs, a platter of puffed wheat-pressed candies, bananas and sweet cakes. He tried to induce her to eat, speaking not to her, but the spirit inhabiting her. The red glow of candles on the table and the incense rose to her face, which lit up in delight at the offerings. She danced before the offerings as the music intensified and the rhythm increased. She put one small bit of food from the platter in her mouth and it sent quivers through her body. She became this strong stomping character filling the entire dance floor with her presence. Hamzah tried to induce her to eat more. In the voice of the spirit, she gave excuses for not wanting to eat, each of which Hamzah countered with a reason as to why the spirit should want to eat the offering. More and more, Hamzah pushed her towards the food as she continued to resist. Finally, at a near climax, she violently reeled back and collapsed on the floor. The first round of her trance was over. Sitting to rest a bit, she consulting with Hamzah on the progress of the night. She was herself again, but not quite, as she was still free from the behavioral confines of her sex in the given context of the ritual. When she asked for anything, coffee or a cigarette, everyone sent waves into the crowd to get it quickly.

The goal of the night was to get her to embody the spirit that was making her sick and then to get that spirit to feast on the food offering, thereby, appeasing the spirit. We were literally trying to drive her to eat. After a few minutes' rest, she was in place and ready to be driven into trance again. With slight variations, this process continued over and over again into the wee hours of the morning. Each time she would reach a trance state, Hamzah would try to drive her towards the food and induce her to eat. Each time the musicians would beat their instruments in ever increasing intensity until the moment when she would again and again reel away from the offerings and break out of trance. I felt as if we were all waiting for the woman to have the orgasm of a lifetime and, by God, she wasn't going to fake this one. This evening represented a substantial financial investment for her family and an enormous amount of careful preparations to ready all the ritual offerings for the spirits present. I imagined this was a once in a lifetime chance for this woman.

I started to fall asleep leaning on a post, when I got pelted by some puffed rice that Hamzah had just thrown at the woman. She was in a strong trance, as every muscle in her body seemed to be jerking in its own direction. Hamzah was whispering incantations to each handful of rice before hurling it at her with great force. Then he grabbed the two clown puppets that were resting above on the support beams of the canopy roof and started beating her back with them, trying to drive her to the food. She got down on all four before the low table, on which the offerings waited, and began rhythmically undulating her body with great physicality. Thrashing her loose hair on the pillow just in front of the table, she shifted to a more circular pattern, pumping the ground by pushing off with her arms and thrusting herself back in the rhythmic cycle with her thighs. The musicians raced to keep up with her, all of their attention focused on her. A loud shriek came out of her as though from her marrow, and she lunged for the food, digging into the platters of food with her mouth, stuffing herself. Finally, the grip of the spirit released its hold on her, and she curled up onto the ground hugging the pillow. She had to spit some of the food out to keep from gagging. Relief came onto all of us present like a sigh from the night around us. She was cured.

I was exhausted and vicariously satisfied on some primal level I didn't even understand. Hamzah gave some final incantations over the woman's family, her husband and two adolescent daughters, who had joined her under the hut. He touched the family and threw their energy to the food; even rubbing their energy off his own arms and legs towards the food. Two men got into place to carry away the remaining offerings. Two long bamboo poles were slipped under the tabletop, and the men carried it away on their shoulders to set it afloat in the river. The musicians packed up, we loaded the truck, and left.

I rode back on the motorcycle through a black hole in the jungle to Hamzah's house to spend the night, which is what I always did on late nights. I lay on a mat on his floor for a long time with my eyes wide with the wonder I had just beheld. I felt humbled and ashamed of the presumptions I had previously held about this country, ashamed of my arrogance for thinking I understood what they believed. The irony of my entire quest became painfully obvious, and I had to laugh out loud. Fascinated by shadows, I sought to illuminate them to understand, yet casting that sort of an examining light on something of that nature simply destroys it. I had to accept the necessity of what is hidden to even begin to understand the mystery. Shadows are compelling because they are on the edge of darkness. I remembered the bugs that would all be coming out of hiding now that the lights were out and forced myself to try to sleep. I pulled the covers up over my head hearing only the sound of my own breath, content with the amazing darkness all around me.

 

Beth Osnes, Ph.D., teaches theatre at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia where she conducted research on the shadow puppet theatre. She is author of Acting: An International Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio) and Twice Alive: A Spiritual Guide to Mothering (Woven Word Press) as well as many articles on theatre, mothering and activism. She is co-founder of Mothers Acting Up, a movement to mobilize mothers to advocate for the world's children (mothersactingup.org) and is now touring North America with a one-woman show about mothering and activism.