Walter William Skeat (1866–1953) was a British colonial administrator and ethnographer, author of Malay Magic: Being an Introduction to the Folklore and Popular Religion of the Malay Peninsula (London, 1900). In Vol. I of The Achehnese his work is cited repeatedly in the translator’s footnotes, supplied by A. W. S. O’Sullivan, as the standard comparative authority for the beliefs and ceremonial usages of the Malays of the Peninsula, against which the corresponding usages of Acheh are set.
Use as comparative authority
Skeat’s Malay Magic is invoked most often in those chapters of Vol. I where Snouck Hurgronje treats of popular superstitions and the rites of passage — tooth-filing, burial custom, the warding-off of spirits, and the mythology of the jén or invisible beings. The tooth-filing ceremony (koh gigoe) of the Achehnese is compared with the elaborate Malayan rite described by Skeat at p. 355 et seqq. of Malay Magic, including the use of the ubat tasak, a dressing of fine clay mixed with the yolk of eggs. The Malayan hantu ayer (water-spirit), warded off by fastening twigs of the kabong palm to the mast of a boat, is referred to Skeat, p. 279. The Malay hantu halilintar (lightning-spirit) and the medicinal use of grated iron filings in water are likewise drawn from pp. 276 and 397–408.
For burial customs Skeat is the constant point of reference: the laying of a betel-nut scissors or small knife on the breast of a corpse to counteract the pantang influence of the cat (Skeat, p. 398); the three sorts of Malay coffins (the tapan sa-keping, the karanda and the “long” coffin described at p. 399); the momentary revival of the corpse to listen to the talqin (Skeat, p. 406); and the conjecture (Skeat, p. 408) that the wedge-shaped Achehnese tombstones were evolved from a phallic emblem. The ceremonial expulsion of epidemics by setting afloat a model boat (lanchang) is cross-referred to Skeat, pp. 433–6, where the same practice is recorded for the Peninsula.
Place in Vol. I
Skeat is not himself a figure of the Achehnese scene; he appears in Vol. I as the principal ethnographic witness for the closely cognate culture of the Malay Peninsula, enabling Snouck and his translator to bring out both the family resemblance of Achehnese custom to that of the Peninsula and the points at which it diverges. The pattern of citation is typical of the comparative method of the work, in which Achehnese usages are continually set beside those of Java, the Straits Settlements, British India and the Arabic East.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
Walter William Skeat (1866–1953) was a British colonial administrator and ethnographer, author of Malay Magic: Being an Introduction to the Folklore and Popular Religion of the Malay Peninsula (London, 1900). In Vol. I of The Achehnese his work is cited repeatedly in the translator’s footnotes, supplied by A. W. S. O’Sullivan, as the standard comparative authority for the beliefs and ceremonial usages of the Malays of the Peninsula, against which the corresponding usages of Acheh are set.
Use as comparative authority
Skeat’s Malay Magic is invoked most often in those chapters of Vol. I where Snouck Hurgronje treats of popular superstitions and the rites of passage — tooth-filing, burial custom, the warding-off of spirits, and the mythology of the jén or invisible beings. The tooth-filing ceremony (koh gigoe) of the Achehnese is compared with the elaborate Malayan rite described by Skeat at p. 355 et seqq. of Malay Magic, including the use of the ubat tasak, a dressing of fine clay mixed with the yolk of eggs. The Malayan hantu ayer (water-spirit), warded off by fastening twigs of the kabong palm to the mast of a boat, is referred to Skeat, p. 279. The Malay hantu halilintar (lightning-spirit) and the medicinal use of grated iron filings in water are likewise drawn from pp. 276 and 397–408.
For burial customs Skeat is the constant point of reference: the laying of a betel-nut scissors or small knife on the breast of a corpse to counteract the pantang influence of the cat (Skeat, p. 398); the three sorts of Malay coffins (the tapan sa-keping, the karanda and the “long” coffin described at p. 399); the momentary revival of the corpse to listen to the talqin (Skeat, p. 406); and the conjecture (Skeat, p. 408) that the wedge-shaped Achehnese tombstones were evolved from a phallic emblem. The ceremonial expulsion of epidemics by setting afloat a model boat (lanchang) is cross-referred to Skeat, pp. 433–6, where the same practice is recorded for the Peninsula.
Place in Vol. I
Skeat is not himself a figure of the Achehnese scene; he appears in Vol. I as the principal ethnographic witness for the closely cognate culture of the Malay Peninsula, enabling Snouck and his translator to bring out both the family resemblance of Achehnese custom to that of the Peninsula and the points at which it diverges. The pattern of citation is typical of the comparative method of the work, in which Achehnese usages are continually set beside those of Java, the Straits Settlements, British India and the Arabic East.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.