Mamak and Inak Bongsu

BY COMPARING various mythological scenarios with available archeological and geological evidence, we may surmise that the Great Deluge reported in Temuan lore occurred approximately 13,000 years ago. 

As for the identity of Mamak and Inak Bongsu, the Temuan say that they are the human form of Tuhan (the Supreme God) on Earth.

Although their spiritual worldview has generally been termed Animism, they clearly believe that all spirits originate from one Great Spirit who is simply known as Tuhan or the Lord. The Aztecs mistook the bearded, pale-faced conquistador Hernando Cortés for their bearded, fair-skinned god Quetzalcoatl, And the Malays - until as recently as the Second World War - addressed the white colonists of Malaya as Tuan (a contraction of “Tuhan”). 

Interestingly, when you repeat the word tuhan rapidly, you begin to hear the word hantu, which means ghost or spirit. (We are reminded that the third aspect of the Christian trinity is called the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete or the Holy Breath. To stretch the point a little further, tuhan also happens to be an anagram of hutan or forest - which, to the Orang Asli, means Mother Nature or Home Sweet Home).

“Tuhan, Hutan, and Hantu” may be the Holy Trinity of the Orang Asli -  but, to all intents and purposes, the Temuan regard Mamak Bongsu and Inak Bongsu as the earthly form of Tuhan in both male and female aspects - and their seven children as a sort of divine First Family from which all their bloodlines derive. I have heard Seri Pagi use the phrase Mamak Bongsu Pancu Bunga Tuan Kecik to express the relationship of the Temuan to their tutelary gods, whose earthly home is (or was) Gunung Rajah.  

Home of rainbows, Lata Chehek (Antares)

Pancu Bunga, like most mythological names, has a literal as well as metaphorical meaning. Literally, it is the flowery spray seen at the top of high waterfalls which produces rainbows when it catches the sunlight. Metaphorically, pancu bunga suggests the fountain of all inspiration, the source of all designs and patterns (in the batik dyeing tradition, for example, the word bunga refers to the leitmotiv, the repeat pattern on the fabric).  

Bongsu is a term of endearment reserved for the youngest in the family. Mamak and Inak Bongsu can either be taken to mean that both are the youngest gods in an unnamed pantheon - or that they qualified for the name when their seventh child was born.       

The paradoxical question of divine singularity versus plurality is simply accepted for what it is - a paradox. The One God becomes the Many and vice versa. Tuan Kecik  literally means Junior or Tiny God. Taken as a metaphor, it refers perhaps to the God-Within-All-Beings (in modern parlance, the Sacred Fractal or Holy Hologram).

Indeed the basis of Animism is found in the etymology of the Latin word anima which means soul, life-giving force, the consciousness or spirit within all material phenomena. Carl Gustav Jung, the great psychoanalytical thinker, used the term anima to describe the “true inner self” reflecting archetypal ideals imprinted in the “collective unconscious” or tribal psyche. 

The animist thus perceives and reveres the indwelling spirit or individual consciousness behind all material forms, whether they be regarded as mineral, vegetable, animal - or as macro-elemental manifestations like earthquakes, thunderstorms, floods, and diseases. When someone falls ill, the animist wonders what malignant spirit (hantu) has taken temporary possession of the person. Meanwhile, the scientist wonders what bacterium or virus is to be blamed for the symptoms. Same belief system, different terminologies.

But germs can be seen under a microscope, the scientific materialist argues. Well, any tribal shaman in a trance (and a great majority of ordinary tribal folk under certain conditions) can see and identify specific spirits or hantu, using a faculty which urbanized humanity seems, for the most part, to have lost.