Senoi - Religion and Expressive Culture



Religious Beliefs. Fear of violence and respect for individual autonomy pervade Senoi life. Children, who are especially vulnerable, need protection by taboos, but parents will infringe a taboo to see if it applies to their particular child. Parents may threaten boisterous children to make them stop behavior that is believed to unleash thunder squalls; but because they regard children as controlling their own lives they will ask children barely old enough to talk if they want a penicillin shot. Everyone fears thunder squalls, but individuals, not communities, make the "blood sacrifice" that appeases storms. For the Senoi, human beings are free, alone, and in constant danger. Individual autonomy applies to religious belief, creating a formless animism. The cosmic order is seen as so fragile that people must always be careful not to destroy it and unleash obscene, ravening horrors into the world, a belief that may be related to the slaving experience. People, most animals, and other entities have several detachable "souls" each. Pain spirits abound. Jah Hut carvings give outsiders some insight into the Senoi spirit world. Christian missionaries were active in the 1930s, producing the first written text. Government proselytizing for Islam is unpopular.

Religious Practitioners. People become "adept" by having familiars. A familiar appears in dreams, attracted by a dreamer's body. A dreamer who chooses to adopt the familiar becomes adept, able with the familiar's help to diagnose and cure diseases caused by pain spirits. Women may reject the offer, since trance is exhausting, but some become "adept" anyway, as midwives. Midwives and adepts tend to marry one another.

Ceremonies. Spirits are so timid that most ceremonies are conducted in darkness at night. Because spirits love fragrance and beauty, dark ceremonial areas are decked with flowers and fragrant leaves. Adepts sing to attract their familiars. Spirit possession and trance occur everywhere but take local forms. Ceremonies, usually lasting two or six nights, are held only for diseases involving pain spirits or loss of spiritual health by individuals (midwives, pregnant women) or communities. The only annual ceremony is after the rice harvest, now synchronized with the Chinese New Year. Teknonymy for both parents begins with pregnancy. Both the pre- and postnatal periods contain ritual restrictions, most of which apply to the mother.


Death and Afterlife. Everyone has several souls, but it is the shadows that become ghosts. Corpses are buried across the stream from the settlement, as ghosts cannot cross running water. Great adepts may be afforded a tree burial. The former practice of abandoning a settlement after someone dies is no longer followed. Mourning lasts a week to a month, during which there are taboos on making music, dancing, and getting dressed up. Six days after the burial a feast "closes the grave." Despite the use of grave goods and vague ideas about a flower-fragrant afterlife, the Senoi are dubious about life after death.

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: