The Malay Heritage Foundation

Wacana Warisan Series #13 – “Intercultural Animal Fables of The Nusantara”

For the first Wacana Warisan Series (WWS) webinar in 2022, organised by the Malay Heritage Foundation (MHF), guest speaker Dr. Nazry Bahrawi delivered a 60-minute webinar on the topic of Intercultural Animal Fables of The Nusantara in English. He is an assistant professor of Southeast Asian literature and culture at the University of Washington-Seattle. His research explores Malay-Indonesian textual and non-material cultures from the lenses of race and ethnicity, poetics and literary theory, as well as translation and adaptation studies. This session officially marks the start of the new WWS season.

Dr. Nazry provided an overview of his webinar topic during the introduction. (Credits: MHF)

Saturday, 23 April 2022 — MHF Vice-Chairman Dr. Azhar Ibrahim, who delivered all 12 WWS webinars last year, introduced guest speaker, Dr. Nazry Bahrawi for the first WWS session in 2022 to the virtual audiences. Dr. Nazry is currently teaching in the United States at the University of Washington-Seattle. Through this webinar, he touched on his research about animal narratives in the Malay Archipelago, which he intends to work on in the next few years.

Dr. Nazry also briefly mentioned the webinar topic update to Intercultural Animal Fables of The Malay World instead, as Indonesia President Joko Widodo has chosen Nusantara, or archipelago in English, as the name of the new national capital to be built on the country’s Kalimantan island.

Dr. Nazry shared that the term “beast” in one of the WWS webinars does not mean something negative. (Credits: MHF)

He revealed that one of the previous WWS webinars, Cendekiawan Melayu yang Menawan dan Melawan Dalam Sejarah (Malay Intellectuals: Beauty and the “Beast” in History) caught his attention. The word “beast” was presented in quotation marks, and according to Dr. Nazry, like discernible readers, we need to rethink what the term really means, which requires some “unpacking”. He shared that “beast” is always thought to connote something negative, and when we make a human and animal comparison, the human is always seen as the better half. In this instance, Dr. Nazry mentioned that the beast in question has a more positive tone – to struggle or rebel, suggesting a sense of heroism and valuable trait to be celebrated.

Dr. Nazry next shared an article by Dr. Wong Tian An, a scholar at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. According to the author, the discipline of Southeast Asian studies has not come very far from its colonial and imperial beginnings. There were many references from both Asian and Western thinkers. It also mentioned a group of prolific early Southeast Asianists, like Syed Hussein Alatas and Wang Gungwu, but none have been established as “canon” in Southeast Asian studies. Dr. Nazry opined that the main reason is not due to a weak scholarship but rather due to the dominance of Euro-America in knowledge production. The thrust is to rethink the discipline of Southeast Asian studies and how to decolonise it.

Article by a scholar who believes that “Southeast Asia studies has not come very far from its colonial and imperial beginnings”. (Credits: CAS)

Dr. Nazry talked about the Hikayat Bayan Budiman, which is based on a Persian original, the Tuti-nama, and is the earliest example in Malay of a framed narrative: a literary work comprising a compilation of individual stories. He said that this compilation of stories is designed to help the protagonists avoid a nasty fate. Dr. Nazry added that animal fables have also been expressed in classical Malay literature as allegorical poems or syair, which became popular in the 19th century.

Another example is the book Hikayat Kalilah dan Dimnah, which contains a collection of fables. According to Dr. Nazry, numerous researchers and scholars have agreed that the book goes back to Indian roots and is based on the Sanskrit text Panchatantra. It was translated into Arabic in the Abbasid age, specifically during the 750CE by Ibn al-Muqaffa’. Dr. Nazry also briefly shared the four trajectories – from Panchatantra #1, from the Dutch #2 and #3, and Ibn Muqaffa’s Kalila wa Dimna #4.

Hikayat Bayan Budiman (The Tale of the Wise Parrot) is an old work of Malay literature based on a Persian original, the Tuti-nama . (Credits: MHF)

Dr. Nazry then discussed the legendary Harimau jadian in Peninsular Malaysia and provided more details. For those who knew the art of Harimau jadian or Weretiger, inheriting the powers and the image of the tiger was definitely possible. Dr. Nazry shared the story of Dato’ Paroi from Negeri Sembilan, believed to be the last known self-professed Weretiger. He was also reported to have been the Ruler of a village of Weretigers that existed in the jungles of Negeri Sembilan. Dato’ Paroi was said to have often wandered the jungles of Negeri Sembilan, Malacca, and northern Johor. Dr. Nazry told the virtual audiences that Dato’ Paroi had once battled the Weretigers from Gunung Ledang, where he successfully defeated the entire band of Weretigers led by Tok Gunung Ledang. A village near Seremban off the Kuala Pilah Road is named after him.

Description of the Ledang weretigers, also known as ‘harimau berantai’, by Za’ba. (Credits: MHF)

A closing Q&A session followed the 13th WWS webinar. Dr. Azhar moderated this segment, and Dr. Nazry addressed several questions from the virtual audience who tuned in via Zoom and Facebook Live.

WWS comprises a series of webinars to encourage the development of new and alternative approaches to understanding Malay history, economy, politics, society, and culture. Beyond the clichés and convenient mainstream, narratives lie many lesser-known facts about the Malay community in Singapore.

The 2022 season comprises six different speakers delivering exciting topics on legacy discourse. Participants who register and attend via Zoom for at least five sessions are issued a Certificate of Attendance. WWS lectures are delivered in either English or Malay.

Useful Links

  1. Full video part 1
  2. Full video part 2 

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