R. Lee
Continuity and change in Chinese spirit mediumship in urban Malaysia
In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 142 (1986), no: 2/3, Leiden, 198-214
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RAYMOND L. M. LEE
CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN CHINESE
SPIRIT MEDIUMSHIP IN
URBAN MALAYSIA
The spirit medium occupies an important position in popular Chinese religion. As an arbiter between the spiritual and the mundane world, he not only provides services in healing and divination but also performs vital roles at temple and spirit festivals. The history of Chinese spirit mediumship can be traced to the Shang Dynasty of the second millennium B.C., where priest-shamans (wu) were accorded high official standing in the imperial courts, until their decline in the late Chou period in the third century B.C.1 However, spirit mediumship did not become obsolete but continued to be practised at the popular level (Yang 1967:
106, 303). Few reports of spirit mediumship in modern China have appeared in print, except for the detailed observations of De Groot
(1964) made in the southern provinces in the late nineteenth century.
Since then, most anthropologists have studied Chinese spirit mediumship in various Chinese communities, particularly in Taiwan (Jordan
1972, Seaman 1978, Kleinman 1980) and Hong Kong (Potter 1974).
Spirit mediumship is also practised in various Chinese communities in
Southeast Asia, but few ethnographies have been published. One such rare ethnography, by Elliott (1955), focuses on Chinese spirit mediumship in Singapore.2 A comparable study on the Malaysian Peninsula has yet to be accomplished. In this essay, I wish to fill some of this lacuna by describing the practices of Chinese spirit mediums and their organization in contemporary urban Malaysia.3
Chinese Folk Religion in Malaysia
It is necessary to describe briefly Chinese folk religious practices in
Malaysia in order to understand the role of the Chinese spirit medium.
RAYMOND L. M. LEE received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is now a lecturer at the University of Malaya. He has conducted research on spirit possession, religious movements, and ethnic relations in Malaysia and has published, among others, 'Communication and Cognitive Pluralism in a Spirit Possession Event in
Malaysia', American Ethnologist 1981, 8, pp. 788-798; and 'Structure and Anti-Structure in the Culture-Bound Syndromes: The Malay Case', Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry 1981,
5, pp. 233-248. His present address is: Dept. of Anthropology and Sociology, University of
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 59100, Malaysia.
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The essence of Chinese folk religion is best summarized by the term
'shenism' as introduced by Elliott (1955:27) to describe the wide range of deities and spirits that are largely worshipped for pragmatic reasons.4
Shen worship (or bai shen) as a folk category transcends the nominal dissection of Chinese religion into Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, since many of the gods worshipped are not confined in practical terms to these divisions. Among the 3.9 million Chinese in Peninsular
Malaysia, about 3.5 million or 90 percent are listed in the 1980 Census as practitioners of Chinese religion (of whom 2 million reside in urban areas).5 The large number of shen worshippers suggests that Chinese religious practices are still maintained among the Malaysian Chinese population, despite the relatively strong influences of Islam and Christianity.6
The multitude of deities venerated by shen worshippers include those from the Buddhist-Taoist pantheon and various innovations unique- to the Malaysian milieu. Among the latter are deified spirits of various
Chinese dignitaries and pioneers. For example, Admiral Cheng Ho of the Ming Dynasty, who visited Melaka in 1408 and 1414, is worshipped as San Bao Tai Shen, especially in Penang and Melaka (Purcell 1967:
123). Yap Ah Loy, the Kapitan China and leader of the Hai San Society in mid-nineteenth century'Kuala Lumpur, is also worshipped by many
Chinese today. A temple dedicated to his spirit is found in Kuala
Lumpur (Choo 1968:137). Another notable deity is Dabogong (most commonly known by its Hokkien designation, Tua Peh Kong), who is thought to be derived from Tudigong, the earth god, but is occasionally treated as the personification of the pioneer spirit (Sakai 1981:135).
Shrines dedicated to Dabogong are sometimes known as Datuk Kong, in reference to their linkage with Malay territorial spirits.7 An interesting development in recent years concerns the inclusion of Satya Sai Baba, a
Hindu saint in South India, in the pantheon of many shen worshippers who are attracted to his alleged healing powers (Lee 1982). Pictures of
Satya Sai Baba adorn the altars of many shen worshippers, many of whom have journeyed to South India to receive his blessings. This development does not imply that many shen worshippers have become
Hindus, but that the eclecticism of the Chinese religious system is maintained as long as its practitioners are free to tap any available shen power for thaumaturgical purposes.
As the most open system among the established religions on the
Peninsula, Chinese folk religion is also the least centralized in terms of administration and organization. Most Chinese temples specializing in shen worship are individually managed by a local committee which may be linked to a particular Chinese voluntary association. Each temple is an independent body but may have some ties with other temples. A national level Chinese temple organization has yet to be formed. The independence enjoyed by these temples implies that each is autonomous
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in its activities, especially in the introduction of new deities and new forms of worship, as in the case of Xinru Jingshe (The Temple of Inner
Peace), which will be described later.
Despite the weak links between shen temples, many are characteristically similar in providing the services of a spirit medium. Many temples that are maintained by residential communities, voluntary associations and clubs employ spirit mediums on a regular basis to answer the needs of the worshippers. Some spirit mediums may also double as temple keepers. The principal role of the spirit medium (known popularly in
Hokkien as dang ki, or 'divining youth') is thaumaturgical. He delivers advice and performs healing in an entranced state occasioned by shen possession. Most of the descending deities are Chinese in origin, although there are some mediums who are frequently possessed by Malay spirits (Elliott 1955:113; Lee 1983). Spirit mediumship has become more popular since Peninsular Malaysia became independent in 1957.
According to Choo (1968:48), during the first ten years of independence
35 Chinese temples of various sizes were built in Kuala Lumpur. The economic prosperity of this period contributed to the rapid expansion of these temples. At the same time, the legalization of lotteries stimulated an increased flow of fortune seekers to these temples. Consequently, spirit mediums specializing in possession by lottery deities enjoyed a booming business. Many urban Chinese also sought spirit mediums as an alternative to Western medicine. This pattern of mediumistic consultation continues to this day. Given the high demand for spirit mediums in contemporary urban Malaysia, it is necessary to examine how their services are organized and delivered.
The Organization of Spirit Mediumship
Spirit mediums can be professionally categorized as temple employees or individual entrepreneurs. The former generally receive a monthly salary from the temple committee in return for their services as spirit medium and occasionally as temple keeper. Nowadays, spirit mediums who double as temple keepers are rare, since the salary offered is not attractive and is equivalent to a small allowance against the rising cost of living in urban Malaysia. This double role is usually fulfilled by older single Chinese men who treat the temple as their home. Younger mediums who are temple employees tend to conduct seances on a part-time basis, since they hold other jobs in the day and maintain a family elsewhere. These temple mediums usually do not receive direct payment from their clients, who are expected to offer a donation to the temple's coffers.
Spirit mediums who practise on their own are either former temple employees with an established clientele or an individual entrepreneur whose early career was supported by friends and family members. These mediums normally operate in their homes, part of which is converted
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into a consultation chamber complete with altars, images of deities, and various religious paraphernalia. Their homes are often treated as temples, where a character board for religious identification hangs over the main door-frame. Some mediums, however, conduct their business away from their homes in shacks or rented buildings that are furnished to look like a temple. Like the younger mediums employed by temple committees, many independent mediums conduct seances only in the evening after they have finished their day jobs. The oath which mediums take at the beginning of their careers usually forbids them to perform healing for large profits (although this does not necessarily mean that all mediums will abide by it). Thus, most mediums are forced to seek other employment to supplement their low income. Independent mediums who have no other jobs may be available for consultation around the clock and some of them run herbal dispensaries to earn extra income.
The services provided by spirit mediums range from counselling to soul raising. Generally, most mediums follow the standard practice of giving advice and preparing talismans (fu) while under possession by a particular shen. Specialists in automatic writing and soul raising are rare.
The former dispense advice in an entranced state by writing with a stick on sand or tablets. It is believed that the shen possessing him directs his hand. In Kuala Lumpur, the Quxian Miao located in the Gombak area is one of few temples which offer this specialized service. This temple has been established for more than sixty years and is run by a committee of local Chinese traders and businessmen. The medium is a Chinese man in his seventies who performs automatic writing and offers other services such as palm-reading and horoscope consultations. Soul raising tends to be a specialty performed by older Chinese women known as wen mipo
(Cantonese, man meaipoh, and Hokkien, kang bong). These women are reputed to have the ability to communicate with the souls of their clients' dead relatives. Soul raisers usually do not conduct seances in temples but at appointed times in their homes or rented premises. In Kuala Lumpur, two soul raisers who work independently of each other have gained wide reputations in the Chinese community. Both are Hakka women. One is in her forties and operates in a shack in a working-class area. The other is in her twenties and conducts seances at her home in a middle-class suburb. The methods of these specialists will be described later.
Spirit mediums seldom advertise their services in print, although their presence is usually indicated by a flag with the Eight Trigrams (Bagua) outside their places of practice. The most common means of gaining access to a medium's services is through personal introduction. Thus, the wider a spirit medium's reputation and network of contacts, the easier for new clients to reach him. A popular medium usually treats a large clientele every evening, so much so that his home or temple resembles a doctor's waiting-room with patients holding number tags as part of the queue. Many mediums attend to their clients in public view, with the
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result that the latter's personal problems are not effectively concealed from others. In the case of the older soul raiser, onlookers even participate in the seance by responding emotionally to the exchange between her and the client. At Quxian Miao, clients are required to relate their problems to a temple interpreter, who records them on a paper talisman which is later burned on the altar. The clients return to the temple at an appointed time and consult the medium in one sitting. Some mediums, however, are more discreet in their practices, as in the case of the younger soul raiser who conducts seances behind a closed door. At the end of a consultation, clients may drink a glass of water mixed with ashes from burnt incense paper, or may receive herbal prescriptions, or may be given a paper talisman stamped with the temple's seal and daubed with the medium's blood. In some cases, the medium prescribes a special amulet but does not immediately deliver it until the required materials are gathered and necessary incantations performed.
The wide range of individualistic styles in spirit mediumship suggests that its organization is somewhat loose and fractioned, which in a way reflects the decentralized nature of Chinese folk religion. There is an implicit recognition among spirit mediums that each is an individual claimant to a source of shen power and is therefore personally obligated to the shen concerned and not to other fellow-mediums. Each medium carefully guards the boundaries of his specialty and tends to be circumspect about the motives of others in the profession. For most mediums, occult knowledge is not freely available unless it is to be imparted to an apprentice. Thus, spirit mediumship is characterized by the development of individual cults, each centering on the reputation of a particular medium whose guarded attitude towards others maintains the competitive atmosphere of the profession.
Mediumistic Performances.
The craft of mediumship largely comprises a public display of an altered demeanour and certain stereotyped behaviours that supposedly signify shen descent into a medium's body. Clients generally accept this display as a genuine demonstration of shen possession because of their trust in the medium's reputation, the beginnings of which can be traced to the medium's accounts of divine selection. The recurring theme in such accounts focuses on the discovery of mediumistic abilities through a spontaneous exhibition of trance-like behaviours or a series of dreams which involve a patron deity. These signs are initially ignored unless they persist for a long time, or until a tragedy occurs which is interpreted as a prelude to a career of mediumship. When a person heeds these signs seriously, he either seeks the tutelage of an experienced medium or allows himself to be guided by his patron deity. These narratives of mediums' careers form an important corpus of inspirational knowledge that provides a legitimizing base for their later performances.
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Mediumistic performances fall into two main categories: those that are routinized at consultations and those that require elaborate orchestration at spirit or temple festivals. The former type of performances may be considered perfunctory in the sense that each medium follows a fixed pattern of behaviour which is somewhat predictable but revered by clients .as conduct of a divine order. This pattern of trance behaviour usually varies from one medium to another, but can be generally classified into three stages. The first stage involves trance induction of which there are several methods. The medium may sit still, inhale incense, or cough violently as though he is about to vomit. These procedures are usually accompanied by chanting. Some mediums prefer to listen to chants played from a tape recorder. The onset of trance is signified by head swirling, rolling back of eyes, trembling in various parts of the body, and changes in the pitch of the voice. When a medium begins to show signs of possession, his assistants (who are family or temple committee members) will dress him in an apron-like garment which is embroidered with the names of the temple and descending shen. Sometimes he is given a sword, flags, or a whip depending on the identity of the descending deity. A Chinese medium who is possessed by a Malay deity does not wear an embroidered garment but a coloured head band, each colour identifying a particular deity.8 Most mediums do not open their eyes during trance. Upon possession, the medium bows before the main altar and performs the Eight Trigrams Movement (in some cases, this
Movement is performed before trance begins). Some mediums begin the trance by whipping in the air. When he is ready for consultation, he moves to a large red table and hits it with a small red wooden block to his left, right and front as a gesture to frighten away evil spirits. Then he sits on a large large red wooden chair known as the Dragon Seat that is marked with the temple's name and the Eight Trigrams.
In the second stage, clients consult the entranced medium on problems related to health, family conflicts, auspicious dates for various ceremonies, charms, jobs and so on. In most cases, communication between the clients and medium is mediated by an assistant who is alleged to have the experience and ability to understand instructions from the shen. Mediums tend to speak in Mandarin when they are possessed by the principal deities of the Chinese pantheon. However, they will speak in Chinese dialects, such as Cantonese and Hokkien, if they are possessed by ashen with specific regional origins. Mediums who are possessed by Malay deities will speak only in Malay. During consultation, the medium adopts the gait and characteristics of the possessing shen. For example, if he is possessed by Dashengye (the Monkey
God), he will grimace and scratch his body like a monkey; if he is possessed by Santaizi (or Nazha, the Third Prince) he will speak in a high-pitched voice and act in a childish, recalcitrant manner. Most clients are given a paper talisman or fu when the consultation ends. Fu
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are strips of yellow, green or white paper on which arcane characters or diagrams are inscribed. A medium usually writes with black ink on a/w, although occasionally he may use blood from his cut tongue as a substitute. A/w is considered efficacious only after it has been stamped with the temple's seal. Some clients may request the medium to stamp their clothing with the temple's seal for protection. In the third stage, the medium emerges from his trance by announcing the departure of the shen and performing various dramatic actions such as throwing weapons on the table, hitting his head against the table, or shouting loudly. If possession is successive, the medium will announce the identity of the next descending shen. His assistants will change the embroidered garment and hand him the appropriate weapons and other objects of shen identification.
Mediumistic performances also comprise an important aspect of various Chinese calendrical festivals (such as Jiuhuangye or the Nine
Emperor God Festival held in the ninth lunar month) and the birthday celebrations of patron deities. At these festivals, several mediums and their apprentices become possessed by different deities and.perform a variety of awe-inspiring acts to demonstrate their apparent imperviousness to physical pain. Because these festivals are large-scale public events, the special performances by mediums are held over several consecutive evenings, in addition to Chinese opera performances organized by the temple committee. Shen possession on these occasions is either systematically induced or spontaneously demonstrated.9 The former method is usually preceded by group chanting that is participated in by both mediums and temple committee members. Chanters who do not read Chinese are sometimes given romanized verses to recite. After the chanting is over, the chief medium presides over the possession of other mediums by seating and holding each individual who chants silently until falling into a trance. Assisted by other mediums, the chief medium pierces a skewer (that may be 2 metres in length) through one or both cheeks of the possessed medium. This is done by pinching the fleshy portion of the cheek and gently introducing the sharp end of the skewer through it, often without drawing much blood if skillfully done. As the skewer is pushed through the cheek, the chief medium wraps incense paper and pours alcohol as a sterilizing agent over it. An embroidered garment is tied around the entranced medium to identify the descending deity. Other mediums are pierced in the same manner or with shorter skewers in other parts of the body. The chief medium and his immediate subordinates may abstain from this mode of self-mortification, reserving their strength for other feats such as walking barefoot over a bridge of knives, flagellating themselves with prickballs, drinking boiling oil, and so on. These feats of physical endurance are performed following a procession led by the entranced mediums and their entourage of temple assistants carrying images of deities strapped to red sedan chairs. The
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presence of the deities is suggested by the swinging of the sedan chairs.
The climax of the festival is reached in a fire-walking ceremony performed by the entranced mediums, who walk barefoot over a bed of hot coals, followed by.supplicants who have made vows to or requested blessings from the deities.
Briefer and less elaborate displays are put on at smaller temples or homes of independent mediums who have limited access to the required resources for grand celebrations. Possession may not be so well coordinated at these smaller-scale festivals. Each participating medium may become entranced independently of the others, practising his own form of self-mortification without adhering to any fixed schedule.
The performances of spirit mediums specializing in automatic writing and soul raising are quite different from those of the ordinary mediums described above. In the case of automatic writing, the performance centers on the medium's ability to provide advice in the form of divinely guided writing rather than on his personality changes under possession.
At the Quxian Miao, the medium goes into a trance while his assistants chant to invoke the patron deity, Guandi (the God of War, Wealth and
Literature). Once in trance, the medium hits the table with a peach stick that is also his writing instrument. When the writing begins, an assistant sits near the medium to interpret the characters that are etched out on a rectangular hardwood table. He reads aloud the characters, which are written on paper by another assistant. If the assistant misreads or mispronounces a character, the medium will strike the table continuously until a correction is made. The advice or remedy given is usually in the form of a poem with seven-line stanzas in classical Chinese that requires expert interpretation from an assistant who is a graduate in this field from a Taiwanese university.10 After performing for three or more hours, the medium collapses on the table. An assistant slaps him on the shoulder and calls out his name to rouse him from the trance.
Soul raisers usually begin seances by requesting basic information from their clients about the dead relatives they wish to contact, such as the names of the deceased, dates of their birth and death, and so forth.
She then closes her eyes and throws uncooked rice over her shoulders as she chants. The rice that is tossed is believed to be an important element for establishing spiritual contact, although there are some soul raisers who do not use it. Sometimes a soul raiser may cover her face with a piece of cloth while chanting. If the spiritual guide is Guanyin (the
Goddess of Mercy) she will recite the Guanyin zhou. If the guides are child ghosts,11 she will chant the Tongziku zhou. During the seance, the soul raiser may belch" continuously or vomit if contact is to be made with the soul of a person who has been dead for less than a hundred days.12
While in trance, the soul raiser may ask the client for further details about the deceased or she may describe the soul that is sought. When a client indicates that the correct soul has been contacted, the soul raiser
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changes the tone of her voice to assume the role of the deceased.
Conversations between clients and their deceased relatives, speaking through the soul raiser, are often conducted in a Chinese dialect and are generally concerned with the latter's well being in the spirit world.
Another common theme of these conversations centers on the deceased's needs, such as food offerings, clothing and money (in the form of hell bank notes). Some clients may request lottery numbers from the raised souls, promising to burn paper effigies of houses, cars and other luxury items as spiritual gifts if they win. At the end of a seance, clients leave their payment
