Malay Magic _ Being an introduction to the - Walter William Skeat

(Perpustakaan Sri Jauhari) #1

219
Or Kutika. ↑


220
“The original Javanese week, like that of the Mexicans, consists of five days, and its principal
use, like that of the same people, is to determine the markets or fairs held in the principal
villages or districts. This arbitrary period has probably no better foundation than the relation of
the numbers to that of the fingers of the hand. The names of the days of this week are as
follows:—Lăggi, Pahing, Pon, Wagi, Kliwon.... The Javanese consider the names of the days
of their native week to have a mystical relation to colours, and to the divisions of the horizon.


“According to this whimsical interpretation, the first means white, and the east; the second,
red, and the south; the third, yellow, and the west; the fourth, black and the north; the fifth,
mixed colour, and focus, or centre. It is highly probable that, like the week of the continental
nations of Asia and Europe, the days were named after the national gods. In an ancient
manuscript found in Java, which will be afterwards referred to, the week of five days is
represented by five human figures, two of which are female and three male.”—Crawfurd, Hist.
of the Indian Archipelago, vol. i. pp. 289, 290. ↑


221
Communicated by Sir George Birdwood of the India Office.


But in Bali S’ri is the wife of Vishnu, or more usually of Shiva. “As goddess of the rice-fields
she is called S’rî ... and has temples on the sawahs [rice-fields], and on the roads between
them.”—Misc. Papers relating to Indo-China, etc., Second Series, vol. ii. p. 105.


She is frequently mentioned in Malay invocations connected with rice-planting; vide p. 89,
supra, and App. cix. ↑


222
Cf. such words in Malay as panchawarna or pancharona (lit. of five colours), panchalogam
(lit. of five metals), which are of Indian origin, with the Indian pancharangi, panchatantra,
etc. ↑


223
Or does this mean “black or red”? But red is Brahma’s colour, and for Kala one would a priori
expect black to be appropriate. ↑


224
See App. ccxliii. for an extract from a treatise on these subjects. ↑


225
Both this table and that of the Katika Lima have been reversed in translating from the originals,

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